Jul 16, 2020
By the Philips Foundation team
Philips employees planted more than one thousand trees near Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to launch the Philips Forest Initiative.
Their aim was to take concrete measures to tackle climate change and promote healthy lives, but also to raise environmental awareness. The mixture of trees and shrubs was specially chosen to provide the best resistance to climate change, drought, diseases and storms – and also to provide a great place for other plants to live in, animals to inhabit and people to visit. The Philips Forest is an initiative of the Philips Foundation, our Sustainability function and Philips Benelux, and was carried out with the support of the Dutch Forestry Service.
It's admirable to see, in less than one month, how many people were mobilized to help plant the first 1,000 trees. It just shows that we are eager to do hands-on activities and make a difference at the same time.
Margot Cooijmans
Director of the Philips Foundation
Take a look here:
One of the participants, Manpreet Singh, Cyber Security Specialist at Group Security, welcomed the tree-planting initiative: "Wherever we come from, we all share the same earth that increasingly needs protection. That is why I highly appreciate that we as Philips employees have the opportunity to protect it through this wonderful hands-on activity."
Philips has an ambitious target to improve the lives of three billion people a year, of which 400 million in developing countries by 2030, by making the world healthier and more sustainable. The Philips Forest Initiative is in response to the UN's SDG 3 (healthy lives and promote well-being for all), SDG 13 (take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts) goals and recent studies on climate change and its health effects. Although tree-planting is a fun activity and great opportunity to get people mobilized, it also helps to raise environmental awareness and the health benefits of clean air. Did you know? By starting this project, we want to act upon our corporate and individual responsibility. We want to create awareness about the link between clean air, health, and nature, and motivate Philips employees to contribute to these activities. This is surely a way to #makelifebetter.
One thousand trees may not be a forest, but it's definitely a start.
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